I debuted a new song at church this evening (singing night). It's called Our Banner Stands.

Those of you who follow this b'log know that our congregation recently adopted new hymnals. The problem with hymnals is they never have everything I like. There is a really cool website that posts public domain hymns and I have been able to accumulate a number of my favorites from there - for a future "supplement."

One of my favorites is a song called "While on the Sea." I am not able to copy it because the lyrics are copyrighted. I'm sure Abilene Christian University would give permission; but it's still an encumbrance. I got to thinking - if we could get hold of the original Ukranian poem then we could write our own lyrics from scratch and release it for public use. Long story short: That's exactly what we did. A friend of ours is from Ukrane and she is fluent in the Ukranian language - as well as Russian, German, English and who-knows-what-else? She knew what song the hymn came from and got a copy. She translated the song for me and I set it to poetry.

It's definititely a war song with spiritual applications - like our own "Battle Hymn of the Republic." We have other hymns that describe an event or situation and it is up to the worshipper to make spiritual application. I don't feel the lyrics are out of line. They are much more war-descriptive than the A.C.U. effort but still appropriate.

I presented the song to the congregation this evening and it seemed to be warmly received. One person even said, "Amen."

So here it is. Note that it can be freely duplicated without fee. Go for it.